Entertaining this Christmas?

You have cleaned your home thoroughly, wrapped the presents, put up the Christmas tree and lights, prepared the meal plan and invited the guests. However, you’re still far away from relaxing in front of the TV for the rest of the holidays. If you’re having friends and family over for Christmas, you have the giant task to clean, cook, tidy up and keep everyone happy. During the three days of festivities, try to enjoy the time with your family as much as you can and not stress yourself out. To help keep your home clean tidy without too much pressure on yourself, here’re a few quick and easy cleaning tips :

On Christmas morning after everyone’s opened up their presents, especially the kids, politely ask them to help you with tiding up – throw away all ribbons and unrecyclable materials and recycle all paper. Then, to rewards the little helpers, make a display of all Christmas cards received – read them out loud and pin them somewhere in sight. Now you can relax – the kids will be busy with the new toys for at least an hour.

If you have a real tree in the house, make sure you clean all fallen needles at least once a day. They’re very hard to clean if they get stuck in the carpet so vacuuming them on a regular basis cuts the effort in half. A hand-held vacuum cleaner is perfect for this.

Clean the table after every meal – don’t let stains, spills or leftover food on plates to get dry. It’s much harder to clean that way. After every meal choose a volunteer (or 2) to help you with the washing up.

Ask any house guests to tidy up their own guest rooms. Remember, you have to enjoy the holidays as well and you can’t be everywhere all the time – other have to help as well. It doesn’t mean that you’re not a good host.

Ask everyone to take off their shoes at the door and make space for extra shoes and coats in your closet/shoe rack. That way you’ll minimise the muddy footprints in the hallway.